A life apart - Neel Mukherjee

Ritwik Ghosh, twenty-two and recently orphaned, finds the chance to start a new life when he arrives in England from Calcutta. But Oxford holds little of the salvation Ritwik is looking for. Instead, he moves to London, where he drops out of official existence into a shadowy hinterland of illegal immigrants. The story that Ritwik writes to stave off his loneliness begins to find ghostly echoes in his own life. And, as present and past of several lives collide, Ritwik's own goes into free fall.

Calcutta-born Neel Mukherjee is the author of three acclaimed novels. A State of Freedom was a New York Times Editors' Choice and The Lives of Others was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Mukherjee divides his time between London and the US.

Historical and contemporary, lit with flashes of magic and violence, this intriguing novel offers multifaceted portraits of India and England as seen from the perspective of a clever, burdened misfit.

Consistently confounding expectations,
Mukherjee's story of the gathering descent of a solitary soul is both poignant
and unsentimental, the work of a notably sophisticated writer.

An elegant and accomplished debut…blends the poignancy of a coming-of-age story with the rawer excitements of an urban thriller.

Mukherjee writes wryly and wonderfully…deeply engaging and brilliantly observed.

The writing…has a sculptured clarity. Assured and fearless…This is subtle, precise writing that penetrates character and motive with astringent humor.
Helen Dunmore

In this brilliant mixture of history, philosophy and science, psychiatrist and historian George Makari explores the origins of our ideas about self and that ephemeral phenomenon, the mind…Insightful, thought-provoking and encyclopedic.